Would You Call That A Revolution?
by wow-tragic
Summary: At Bellefontaine Academy for the Magically Gifted, the social climate is changing in the No Maj world and dark forces are arising in the Magical one. During the 1968-1969 school year, the times, most definitely, are changing.


Micah Arceneaux's afternoon was going fairly well until his parents wanted his opinion.

Which, at any rate, was directly the result of the letter.

Although, truth be told, there wouldn't have been any letter to worry his opinion about if he had gone over to Barbara Hannover's place earlier that day like planned.

A plan he was forced to cancel on account that his younger brother decided to celebrate his birthday on the _actual_ date of his birth, on not on the weekend which would have been much more convenient for everyone else.

So, in other words, his afternoon was ruined and his brother, Ian, was at fault. As usual.

Micah sighed, slumping into his father's (quite possibly) antique chair. The family of six was seated around the table. Summer's yellow light shone through the window's yellow curtains and a cool breeze skipped and swept over the table, cooling down the lunch that Micah no longer had any appetite for.

Micah cleared his throat and, after giving a measured glare to his brother, glanced to the right at his father who sat at the head of the long mahogany table. His father caught his glance and raised a single golden eyebrow, expectant.

Micah cleared his throat again. "I d-don't believe the recent ch-changes to the school will, um, overwhelmingly ch-change its quality. Mr. D-D'Entremont is, uh, well regarded within the c-community."

"He's well-regarded as a common foolish crackpot." His father interjected. His deep voice carried down the table to where Micah sat next to its foot-end. Ian sat across from him, his cheeks red and ballooning from all the powdery beignets he was stuffing in his mouth. The birthday boy's 1st gift of the day was having the house elves provide him with any type of food he wanted for the day. And he asked for beignets. _All day_.

 _The birthday boy is probably unaware that he has a party tonight_ , Micah thought. _What'll he eat then?_

"And, Micah," his father continued, a napkin dabbing the corner of his mouth carried by an unseen force, "Whatever makes you believe that the quality of the school won't change? Don't you understand that the prestige of the school will plummet once they open their doors to people who couldn't tell a wand from a tree branch?"

"Uh," Micah started. He scratched the back of his neck, his finger getting tangled in a blonde curl during the action. "Yeah, s-sure," he continued. He tugged at the collar of his shirt. When did it get so hot?

"Boy, you know what I've said about the muttering," the voice of his father came again, this time accompanied by a disappointed "tsk"ing sound from his mother. His distaste for his unsolved stuttering was left unspoken. Micah was fully aware that he didn't answer the question to his parents' liking, and he was just as sure that they were asking him about more than just the politics of the school.

Which would have been difficult enough as he understood next to nothing about politics.

As his father kept talking about his distaste for the Administrator, Micah reached for a glass of orange juice. Gulping it down, he wondered when his throat got so damn _parched_.

"I can't quite possibly understand what led to the Board agreeing to such a thing," came the voice of his mother. Micah couldn't quite possibly understand what led his mother, Francine Arceneaux, to be so upset. It's not as if she ever voted for any of the people on the Board. It's not like she ever bothered with things like that. She fancied parties. "Putting the lives of our _children_ at stake."

Elmer Arceneaux, Micah's paternal grandfather, sat in the chair to his left, smoking a pipe, charmed so the aroma of smoke was left undetected. His mustard yellow sideburns were braided into his beard and his meteres long yellow hair was twisted into some kind of intricate knot at the top of his head, a hairstyle done particularly for his grandson's birthday. Most days it was left in a maniacally tangled mess, like a river of string cheese that would trail behind him as he walked across the interior of his son's home.

"What lives are being put at stake here, Franny dear?" His voice was rough, like the sound of an horse carriage driving over gravel. "I think it's a splendid opportunity. Don't you think so, Geraldine?" He addressed the latter part of his statement to his wife, a little grey woman with little grey clothes. Her curly grey hair bounced up and down as she nodded her head in her sleep.

"However do you mean that you don't understand the lives at stake," his mother countered. "We have no idea what kind of backwater dilapidated places these _people_ come from." Her voice, level as always, seemed to flash where his father's voice boomed. Micah was well aware that his mother had a way with words, but she always seemed to use it to insult things or people. Which was another valid reason he didn't like being asked of his opinion.

"I assume they come from the same country, my dear," his grandfather said, taking a long drag at his pipe.

" _Hardly_ the same world," was his mother's reply.

The clatter of forks against plates followed in the tense silence.

MIcah coughed. When no one's eyes moved from their plates, he coughed again.

His father, his eyes still cast downwards to his plate, spoke. "Yes, boy?"

Micah gulped. "Um, so. How long is the party? For him?"

"For Ian?"

"Yes, s-sir." _Him._

"Until the guest see themselves fit to leave."

"Ah," Micah replied. "W-well, I had promised B-barbara—"

" _No_ ," his mother interjected instead.

"B-but," Micah started.

"Are you under the impression that a No Maj girl is more important than Ian?" his mother's steel grey eyes held his gaze.

"N-no," Micah replied, reluctantly. "B-but I—"

"Then I see no issue." His mother paused to have a drink of her white wine. "Honestly, Adrian," she said, the conversation now directed towards her husband. "First the negroes, now this. What would the neighbors say?"

Micah slumped into his seat. Glaring at his red-faced, oblivious brother, he sighed.

 _Sorry, Barbara._

* * *

When Terrence Dubois received his letter to Bellefontaine Academy for the Magically Gifted, he initially ripped it up.

He ended up ripping several copies of the letter before he finally got the idea that whoever was sending them from wherever they were sending it from wasn't going to stop sending them until he actually sat down and read it.

On the front of the beige-colored envelope, his name was written in hoity-toity silver script. It shimmered like some types of metal did if you held it at the right angle. But his name on the envelope shimmered at every angle.

It pissed him off.

Ripping it open (just the envelope this time), he leaned his back against the wooden front door of his house and read it. It said everything and nothing at all:

TO TERRENCE ABEL DUBOIS:

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO ATTEND THE BELLEFONTAINE ACADEMY FOR THE MAGICALLY GIFTED DURING THE 1968- 1969 ACADEMIC YEAR. AS A STUDENT OF THIS DISTINGUISHED ACADEMY, YOU WILL FIND YOURSELF A MEMBER OF A LARGER, ENRICHED, AND NEWLY INTEGRATED COMMUNITY. WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU IN THE FALL.

ENCLOSED IS A LIST OF ALL NEEDED MATERIALS AND LOCATIONS TO FIND THEM. WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR FUTURE CORRESPONDENCE.

YOURS SINCERELY,

BARTHOLOME D'ENTREMONT  
ADMINISTRATOR

And while the letter was nicely written on clean paper and used big and fancy words, Terrence wondered how exactly they thought he would be happy about being given this oh-so amazing _opportunity_.

Terrence's mother was a witch. A half-blood, in fact, whose magical lineage originated from a sharp-mouthed and cold-hearted carpenter named O'Malley Davidson who moved down to Lafayette from Little Rock to jump a school teacher named Beatrice Green who would become Terrence's grandmother. His grandmother was kind and cautious where her husband was not. In a red haze of anger, his grandfather was prone to cursing anything that breathed.

And magic wasn't always forgiving.

When Terrence's mother was born with the same magic that plagued so many years of Beatrice's union, rather than ordering her to hide it, she reached out to several communities wherein her bright daughter learned the magic of the countryside, the best young healer the community had known in years.

Terrence's mother would always say how much she regretted not having a formal education in order to hone her skills. And while Terrence hated his magic and how the world perceived it, his older sister embraced it. And once she turned eleven, she set her eyes on Bellefontaine.

His sister applied to that school every year since she was old enough to potentially attend the "distinguished academy". And every year, they responded that they wouldn't accept her. That they only allowed a certain group of people and she was the wrong sort.

Jacqueline Dubois, winner of the Tituba Scholarship that would cover her entire attendance of the all girl's Salem University for Witches in Massachusetts, was anything _but_ the wrong sort.

The people at Bellefontaine probably expected him to be excited about this. That he was given such an amazing _fucking_ opportunity. That he should be damn _grateful_.

Terrence's amber-colored fingers crumpled the letter into a ball, but the wrinkles smoothed out and the creases were lifted. Terrence regarded it as a fancy "up yours".

"They really try to get their point across," Terrence muttered.

Folding the letter into a deliberately uneven square, he shoved it in his back pocket. His back slid down the door, uneven red wood pricking him as he went, He gazed across the street to wherever he supposed the stupid academy was standing. He figured it was east of him, probably shrouded in some sort of pretentious magic.

The sky was an odd canvas, a union of a deep purple and bright orange that only the sunset could manage. The sound of children's laughter, grown ups's chatter, and a B flat trumpet's tune filled Terrence with a curious sense of contentedness and sentimentality.

Terrence supposed he could just attend his normal public school and deal with the normal people and normal assholes and normal brown nosers. He supposed he could just learn basic magic on his downtime while he did more important things like getting a normal job and settle down in another normal neighborhood just like his own.

At the end of the day, who needed magic anyway? His dad ended up fine.

Then again, Jacqueline would probably hex him until his dying day if he passed this up.

Plus, if he went, he could piss off the general Bellefontaine population.

And wouldn't that be a sight.

* * *

Gemma Louise Huggins was fully aware that two in the morning was much too early to still be awake, but she couldn't help herself.

Earlier that day, she received the letter that welcomed her to possibly the best wizarding school in the Southern United States.

How could she possibly sleep?

A tawny owl had appeared during the late morning of what was otherwise a normal summer day. Her younger twin siblings were the ones to notice it since Gemma was hanging up the just-washed clothes outside at the back of the house. They called her and Gemma had no idea how important that moment would eventually be.

The nearby public schools would be reopening in another two weeks. Gemma and two of her siblings were expecting to attend Sol. C Johnson High School once its doors opened. It had been integrated for the past five years, but their presence (and the presence of people who looked like them) still came with a lot of unsaid expectations. Her mother had spent the past month hemming the old clothes she could repair and replacing with new clothes the ones she could not because, if it was in her power, her children would be attending that school as presentable as she could make them.

Gemma learned long ago how important appearances were to her mother.

Over the course of two months, her father's grocery business boomed, leading to the second move of her life. The red brick house in the picturesque and friendly neighborhood was the first gift. And they kept coming. The money her father made from his modest establishment bought her brother Paul a fancy suit and tie for his university interview. It bought a sketchbook and a vast array of paints for her brother Matthew. It bought brightly-colored dresses and brightly-colored shoes for her sister Tallulah. It bought a collection of Jules Verne books for her sister Ruby. It even bought Robert, her oldest brother, his bail.

Gemma genuinely wondered what they would get for Christmas this year.

And, while she had initially held off from any form of gifts, save a few bags of sweets Matthew would send her way, she considered that her father's business boom might even buy her materials for Bellefontaine.

She didn't dare close her eyes, she was so excited.

She was nervous, of course. Louisiana, while not far away, seemed much too fantastic for a person like her. What had she to offer?

Truth be told, it was probably more nervousness than excitement that kept her eyelids from closing.

Supposing she decided to go (the decision was entirely up to her. Her parents already gave her the "yes" she needed), what would the school be like? What was the Administrator like? How were the classes?

The idea of going to school in New Orleans thrilled her, but she was nervous nonetheless.

She sat up in her bed, the light of the full moon giving her shared room a pale glow. Looking at her sleeping siblings, she supposed she would end up in a room like this filled with, instead, students from all over the country.

Maybe even from as far as California. Imagine that.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed she shared with Tallulah, she reached down and pulled out a small cedar trunk from under her bed.

The sound of unlatching metal bounced across the quiet room as she opened it. Her small brown hands found the ever-smooth parchment declaring her acceptance to the Academy and the materials she needed.

Robes, she figured, would be easy to find. But what about a wand?

"Gemma?" a deep voice whispered.

Gemma gasped sharply, her pounding heart jumping to her throat.

 _Look at you, Gemma_ , she thought. _Jumping like a regular tabby cat over nothing. How're you gonna last over there?_

"It's nothing, Matthew," she said, placing her letter carefully back in the box. She latched it closed again, the clicking sound seeming to echo around the room louder than before. "I'm going back to sleep."

A breathy chuckle came from across the room. Laying down, legs kicked up over the covers, Matthew rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. Quietly, so to not wake the twins who shared his bed, he said, "You weren't sleeping to begin with, Gem."

"I'm sleeping now." Gemma swung her legs back onto the bed, the mattress dipping significantly as she did so. Her hands went to her hair, feeling around for any undone braids. "Goodnight."

"Don't sweat it, Gem," Matthew said, his voice rising carefully over the sound of soft snoring and distant cicadas. He yawned. "You're gonna do great over there."

* * *

"Pay _attention_ , Arietta."

Arietta blinked, her large blue eyes slowly leaving an odd stain on the parlor's pink wallpaper. The pink wallpaper of the parlor was odd to begin with, stain or not. Like her father's photographs of her mother, they seemed to move around. Patterned spirals coiled around diamond shapes like snakes. The solid-colored gold circles, faceless though they were, appeared to make faces at her. Mock her.

She briefly wondered if one of the servants would clean it.

" _Arietta!"_

This time, Arietta blinked furiously and turned her head from the wall to her father. She was sitting next to her father, Thomas Galloway, in the presence of a man and two women who sat in chairs a few feet in front. Their names Arietta had both forgotten and didn't care to remember.

"Sorry, father," she said quietly. She fiddled with her fingers, folded on top of her lap. She could feel goosepimples cover her skin on account of the _Frigido_ charm placed on the room. Every moment that passed was another moment she yearned for the sticky hot and heavy humidity just a few feet away behind the massive oak door barring her inside.

"Oh, it's no problem," one of the women said apologetically. Her hair was a premature white, not a strand out of place in her bun. She was using that pitying tone that Arietta disliked. Everyone seemed to use it on her. The kind that was cautious, not a word spoken too sharpy or too quickly. "Begin when you're ready."

As much as Arietta detested the sound of pity, she sometimes wished her father used it. His words always sounded so empty, not a soul of emotion behind it.

Arietta bent down, reaching to the side of her chair. She picked up her flute case, opened it, but the parts together, placed it on her lap, closed her case, and placed it back down at the side of her chair.

This action had been done so many times before, whatever significance it still held was lost to her.

She took a shaky breath, briefly wondering why it was shaky in the first place. Fixing her posture, she held her piccolo up, her lip plate held below her mouth. She began.

The electric lights of the house flickered momentarily and the fires of the candles dimmed, casting an eerie luminescence throughout the room. Arietta's fingers felt weightless, her thick brown hair lifted from her back and shoulders, her goosepimples vanished as the temperature of the room seemed to raise to an unbearable heat.

The man seated before wore a shiny black top hat and a dark green robe. Unbothered by the change in temperature, a muttered notes under his breath while a quill furiously jotted them down. The woman who spoke with the bun gasped while the other woman, black hair pooling on the ground around her, popped mints into her mouth, appearing for the world to be absolutely unamused at Arietta's cursed song.

Arietta was always unaware of her songs. She had played the piccolo since she was eight after her mother showed her how, but once her mother died, her songs were _different_. As if it wasn't air she was breathing into her instrument. It was as if it was her _soul_.

From what she heard from conversation never addressed to her, it sounded different each time. How funny it was that the composer couldn't even remember what she composed.

She finished, like always, with her cheeks feeling flushed and her eyelids feeling like weights were dragging them down. She ended with not even a note of what she played in her memory.

"Mr. Galloway," the black-haired lady began. "Your daughter certainly has a condition."

Her father grunted. That much was obvious. When she was ten years old, one of her songs had caught the attention of twenty-three No Majs. Her father returned home from a business meeting to a crowd of people trying to break into the house. The _Obliviates_ the servants of the house cast their way became null once Arietta's song began again. Her father once mentioned that they were all crying.

He found the source of the music, stopped Arietta, and _Obliviated_ the lot of them.

"And you say that she's got more of a handle on her affliction?" the hatted man questioned. His quill paused momentarily, waiting for an answer.

Arietta was curious about what was being written there. She wondered if it was another variation of what so many other healers had written before.

"That is correct," her father's deep voice replied. Monotonous as always. "My question is if she is fit to continue her schooling."

"That is a question for the Administrator," the black haired lady said. Her accent revealed her country background. "But where his head is nowadays, I'm not sure if you'd receive a healthy answer."

"And you said she had an, ah, _incident_ last year on school grounds?" the white haired lady asked.

Arietta remembered the show before the Quidditch games last year. How the sound of her piccolo rose even above the roar of the audience, how so many members of the marching band had fallen to the ground in what looked like a blitzed stupor. How they didn't wake up for hours.

That had been such a bum trip.

"Yes," Arietta whispered, refusing to look up at the three pairs of questioning eyes. She resisted the urge to apologize again. She had apologized so much after what had happened.

"I just need to know if it's safe," her father said.

The woman with black hair scoffed at the word "safe". The white haired woman said that she didn't see why not. The man with the top hat said that there hadn't been a recorded incident of a student with The Ailment of Orpheus at Bellefontaine.

Her mother had that same Ailment, but she was taught at home by her parents, never going to any kind of fancy school where they would keep record of that.

"A close eye would have to be on her at all times." The white haired woman smiled at Arietta, her thin red lips stretching across her face like a cut. "And, by Merlin, I hope the event that happened last year is the worst that it gets."

"There are no cures at this time," the man began. "But be sure to contact our office once she returns for her first school break. I'm sure we'll have something by then."

That was it. Cordial goodbyes were exchanged and heads nodded. The trio exited the house through the oak door and it was quiet in the house again, save the quiet footsteps of servants.

"That was pointless," Arietta mumbled.

"You'll get better," her father replied. He reached out his hand as though to pat her back, but pulled it back. He muttered something about having work to do, and rushed away.

Arietta sat alone again. Her eyes traveled back to the pink and gold wallpaper. She was now absolutely _certain_ that the gold circles were mocking her.

* * *

For two weeks, Raul Castillo ignored the letter.

It helped that his chanting _Tzacua_ essentially hid him from the letter's senders. Every morning he would say that. It became almost ritualistic that after fourteen days had passed, he still said it, not totally remembering why he did.

At the back of his, head he remembered that it was for something important, and he wouldn't argue that logic. If he did it, he obviously had a reason to do so.

He blinked his eyes awake, momentarily blinded by intense and glaring light. His neck felt cramped and there was dirt caked in between his toes.

Slowly, he faced the reality that he had somehow ended up outside. He was lying down on the grass in the ugly excuse for a garden. There were probably, like, two daffodils in there. And they weren't even that large.

Squinting his eyes, he reached out his hand for something to lean on. Finding the side of the wooden house, he shakily made his way to his feet.

His eyes adjusting to the sunlight, he slowly began to make out other small houses like the ones he lived in. He could see the grey road (that was more potholes than road, if you asked him) and that one black cat with the missing ear that his Abuela fed one time and had stalked their home ever since.

Jonesboro, Louisiana was probably the ugliest city Raul had never hoped to live in.

Yawning, he rubbed his hand over his buzzed black hair and turned towards the direction of the front door.

"How the fuck did I end up outside?" he asked once he opened the door. His _Tio_ was sitting at the three-legged table near the window. His hair was greased back and he wore a grey-collared shirt. He took a bite out of his Spam sandwich, chewing and swallowing slowly before giving Raul a level look.

"You snore," was his only reply.

" _Me vale madre_ ," Raul retorted. "You can't just kick me outside if I snore." He walked to the pantry. Opening it, he pulled out a jar of peanut butter. He dug his left hand into it and leaned against the wooden counter. After licking his fingers, he spoke again, working his tongue around the thick consistency of the condiment. "You don't know what could've happened to me."

His _Tio_ snorted, unimpressed. " _¿De Verdad?_ " His chair squeaked as he stood up. "Like what?"

"Murder," Raul said, licking the roof of his tongue. "Maiming."

"Like the chupacabra?"

"Exactly like the chupacabra," Raul said.

"There are no chupacabras in Louisiana, _sobrino_." His _Tio_ walked to the door as though weary. "I work twelve hours. I need to sleep. This is my house. I can put you out."

" _Jodete_ ," Raul muttered under his breath. "Maybe I will leave."

"Maybe you should," his _Tio_ replied, an edge to his voice. The two stared at each other, their gazes unyielding. The temperature of the kitchen seemed to drop. Foggy air escaped Raul's nose.

"Stop that," _Tio_ said.

Raul considered saying "make me", but supposed that that was immature. The temperature rose to a normal temperature. Silence followed for a few seconds before Raul said, "Why you still here? Ain't you got a twelve hour shift to go to?"

"She saw the letter," his _Tio_ responded. "I don't care much for it, but she wants you to go. Says it'd be good for you."

Suddenly, Raul remembered his motivation for chanting _Tzacua_ and angrily shoved his hand in the jar of peanut butter again. "Why'd I want to go to _gringo_ establishment anyway?"

"Like I said, _sobrino_ ," his _tio_ continued. "Her words. Not mine. No arguments. Talk to her. _Hasta pronto._ " He opened the door and closed it behind him without waiting for an answer.

If looks could burn, the door would've been in flames.

"Whatever," Raul muttered, scooping another handful of peanut butter. "Fuck _that_."

But he couldn't argue with his _abuela_.

* * *

 **(Sorry it's rough, but it's more introduction than actual story)**

 **As you can see, some characters are happy at the integration, angry at it, or absolutely indifferent.**

 **I had a little fun with creative liberties with the characters, but I hope they didn't deviate too much from the source (and, I figured that if there was greek mythology illusions in the original series, why not here?)**

 **Obviously, I don't speak Spanish, but I do have a notebook full of Spanish swears that my neighbor for me for my fourteenth birthday. Quite a gift. Who knew it would serve me well?**

 **PM me if you have any suggestions or questions and don't forget to review!**

 **(And anyone who doesn't see their character now, they will show up in the next chapter or so!)**


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